Nested Java enum definition - does declaring as static make a difference? [duplicate]

Solution 1:

No, it makes no difference. However the reason is not because it is a member declaration inside an interface, as Jon says. The real reason is according to language spec (8.9) that

Nested enum types are implicitly static. It is permissable to explicitly declare a nested enum type to be static.

At the following example static does not make any difference either (even though we have no interface):

public class A {
  enum E {A,B};
}

public class A {
  static enum E {A,B};
}

Another example with a nested private enum (not implicitly public).

public class A {
  private static enum E {A,B}
}

Solution 2:

No, it makes no difference. From the language spec, section 9.5:

Interfaces may contain member type declarations (§8.5). A member type declaration in an interface is implicitly static and public.